Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Dr. Strangelove]

Nova Scotia bans the sale of US-made booze. lol I would say there are some small towns in Wisconsin that could make up the difference, but I do believe the New Scots hold their own in that department.

N.S. takes immediate steps to fight back against U.S. tariffs | CBC News

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Mike]

What a time to be alive.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Look, there's a ton of arm waving going on over this. Admittedly, tariffs are inflationary - no way around that but the degree to which they are inflationary is going to be important and what kinds of exports tariffs are imposed. I'm trying to avoid the hysterical headlines predicting economic catastrophe as well as some of the dumb stuff from people on the right that are MAGA nut jobs.

I get power politics and Trump is playing that game. On China, I think both sides will find restraint and dialogue to be more useful than threats and counter threats. Read this morning that China has so far chosen not to overreact. They don't want a trade war. Seems China is in a wait and see how this plays out mode. Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum-Pardo, is arguing that her government has already done the things Trump wants to force her to do with tariffs and the figures would seem to support that on immigration but not on the Fentanyl problem flowing from Cartels in Mexico illegally across the S boarder into the US. The impact of US tariff's on Canada is hard to assess because there are exceptions and Canada's biggest export is oil - apparently one of the Trump administration's exceptions. Without counting oil (when that's counted they have a trade deficit), they have a positive trade balance looking at the rest of their exports v. imports.

None of this will be news in a month and we'll have a better idea from more rational analysis of what is going on.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Oil isn’t being exempted. Canadian oil is being taxed “only” at 10%. Mexican crude is at 25%.

Gas prices will plummet thanks to this brilliant move. Just watch and see!

[Dr. Strangelove]

Weeeeeeee!!!

[Jeff Buchanan]

You guys will hastily jump right on a word or words from conservatives that doesn't fit your view. Read my post. I didn't say "exempt" I said, "exceptions." Mexican oil is getting an exception (10% instead of 25%) to Trump's Mexican's tariffs on oil. I said nothing about tariffs on Mexican crude.

Fact checking, I found this document from what appears to me to be a unbiased report on US Petroleum Trade. What fascinated me was how tariffs on oil affect pricing models at multiple levels in the processes of extraction to refining to delivery to gas stations and then to our tanks. The net effect of tariffs on the price/gallon of gas at the pump is difficult to predict at this point ...... which was kinda my main point in offering that we ought to hold off on all the "arm waving" and wait out assessing what Trump's oil tariffs will actually cost US consumers at the pump.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12488

[Jeff Buchanan]

Re Douglas Irving above: Well, duhhh ...... assuming we have enough information within that notification to assess the actual cost to the consumer. If I'm reading this notification correctly, there are two plans. One is a fixed contract for gas, the other is a fixed contract with a cap. None of this talks about the hard to predict numbers of the cost of gas at the end of the pipe in your home. It is warning that at today's delivery price, there will be an additional cost of 25% added to the delivery price. Note that the notification stipulates that if what they are paying is at a lower amount for the gas they are delivering to someone's home, you'll be charged that lower amount. How can this be? Well, as I explained above the daily price of fuels that a distributor pays varies and depends upon where their getting there fuel from. Mexico, the Netherlands, other if they opt out of buying the higher priced fuel from Mexico fuels that have a tariff imposed on them.? Don't know.

Pricing fuel at the point of delivery to the consumer has other factors at play along the extraction to supply to delivery chain. I'm not saying that fuel prices aren't going up. I'm saying it is not as simple as the left wants to imply that it is. IOW, let's wait the hysteria out and see what actually happens.

[Da Geezer]

This is from Today's WSJ.



The uproar last week over the Trump administration’s short-lived pause on federal grants exposed how dependent Democratic states and cities have become on Washington handouts. Call it a welfare trap.

“Fifteen percent of our workforce are funded by those dollars,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy groused. A lawsuit brought by all 22 states with Democratic attorneys general plus the District of Columbia detailed a litany of programs funded by Uncle Sam. Washington state said it received $121 million last year for allergy and infectious-disease research. Illinois claimed federal Medicaid funds made up 60% of its 2023 spending on “critical health services.”

“Washington, do you realize the consequences of what you’ve done here? And do you really want us to not fund law enforcement?” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared. “Do you really want us to not fund roads and bridges?” What are New York state taxes for?

The freeze didn’t apply to most federal dollars that flow to states for social welfare, education and transportation since these are based on statutory formulas, though the administration’s original memo didn’t explain that clearly. On Wednesday the administration rescinded the memo after a judge blocked it.

Democratic states and their economies depend much more on Washington largesse than Republican states do. This year, New York received roughly $4,900 per capita from the feds and California $4,300—two to three times as much as Florida ($1,700) and Texas ($1,500). That’s because Democratic states provide more generous social welfare, which is increasingly funded by Washington thanks to regulatory changes by the Biden administration.

Democratic states also received a disproportionate share of the more than $1 trillion that Congress sent to state and local governments in 2020 and 2021 as pandemic relief. Between 2018 and 2022, federal dollars flowing to state and local governments increased by about $515 billion, more than the rise in Social Security and Medicare combined.

Most Covid funds are running out, though the Biden Federal Emergency Management Agency planned to hand out disaster-relief funds to states and cities for pandemic “emergency” spending through August 2026. This year’s Los Angeles city budget includes $208.2 million in FEMA Covid funds, including for housing vagrants in hotels. New York state’s budget this year includes nearly $3.5 billion in FEMA dollars for Covid “emergency protective measures” such as home test kits.

After blowing through federal pandemic largesse, states and localities are tapping FEMA to backfill their budgets. Congress, in turn, keeps backfilling FEMA. Rinse and repeat.

The Government Accountability Office last summer projected that the Covid “disaster” will be the most expensive in FEMA history. President Trump is right to call for shifting more FEMA responsibilities to states. Federal spending on disaster relief creates a moral hazard by reducing the incentive for states to invest in disaster preparation and mitigation.

The same goes for social welfare. States have less incentive to help lift people out of poverty since they receive more federal dollars if people stay poor. When you’re spending someone else’s cash, there’s hardly an incentive to spend it prudently. Medicaid, states’ biggest source of federal dollars, encourages inefficient spending.

States receive $1 to $3 from Washington for every dollar they spend on Medicaid—and $9 for lower-income able-bodied individuals covered under the ObamaCare expansion. Democratic states provide more-expansive benefits and easier eligibility to wring more money out of Washington. Some 36% of Californians are covered by Medicaid, compared with 19% of Floridians and 15% of Texans. The federal share of the Golden State’s Medicaid spending—nearly $120 billion—is more than Florida’s entire budget.

America’s welfare queen is New York. Federal dollars make up roughly 40% of the state’s budget. Some 44% of New Yorkers are covered by Medicaid or a quasipublic option for lower-income people including migrants. Thanks to a Biden regulatory waiver, the feds foot about 95% of this public option’s costs, about $11.7 billion this year.

Government, social assistance and healthcare account for nearly all new jobs added in such Democrat-run states as California, New York, Minnesota and Illinois. Their high taxes and excessive regulation have suppressed job creation by private businesses, so that government spending is now their main engine of employment growth. How long can this last?

Soaring pension bills for government workers are crowding out public services. Lawmakers have in turn hiked taxes, but the resulting population flight has shrunk their tax bases. All this has made them more dependent on Washington spending. Why should taxpayers in Houston and Jacksonville subsidize mismanaged government in Sacramento and Albany?

[THE_WIZARD_]

Proud voter of a THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!!!!1111

THE FOURTH REICH IN FULL FORCE BABY!!!!1111

[Da Geezer]

All the talk about whether tariffs WILL cause inflation has too many variables to draw many conclusions. Let's see how it plays out.

However, the above numbers, primarily regarding Medicaid, are shocking. I haven't heard a single commentator, right or left, comment on the enormous incentives states have to get people on the dole. If the US announced tomorrow that we would not have to borrow money to subsidize the Democrat states, we would see an interest rate drop across the economy. Lowering interest rates is the linchpin of lowering inflation.

[THE_WIZARD_]

PROJECT 2025 IS THE BOOGEYMAN!!!!1111

[Dr. Strangelove]

Turd polishers gonna polish turds.

The tariffs could be great!!! Give it till after the midterms, fellow patriots!!!!